A Long Way from Home
Author:  Connie Briscoe
Publisher:  HarperCollins Publishers, Incorporated
Date Published:  August 1999

A Long Way from Home recounts the joys, pain, and ultimate triumph of three generations: Susie; her daughter, Clara; and her granddaughter, Susan. Born and reared as house slaves on Montpelier, the Virginia plantation of President James Madison and his wife, Dolley Madison, they are united by love, by a fierce devotion to each other and their fellow slaves, and by a growing desire for freedom - a dream that will finally come to fruition for Susan at the end of the Civil War. A Long Way from Home recounts the joys, pain, and ultimate triumph of three generations: Susie; her daughter, Clara; and her granddaughter, Susan. Born and reared as house slaves on Montpelier, the Virginia plantation of President James Madison and his wife, Dolley Madison, they are united by love, by a fierce devotion to each other and their fellow slaves, and by a growing desire for freedom - a dream that will finally come to fruition for Susan at the end of the Civil War.

Abide with Me
Author:  E. Lynn Harris
Publisher:  Doubleday & Company, Incorporated
Date Published:  March 1999

At the end of Just as I Am, Raymond Tyler, Jr., was beginning a relationship with Trent, a fraternity brother from his college days, while Nicole had found love with Jared, Raymond's buddy from Atlanta. As Abide with Me opens, Raymond and Trent are settled in Seattle, where Trent's career as an architect has bloomed and Raymond's law practice is booming. All seems well. Then, late one night, Raymond gets a call from a United States Senator that threatens everything he's built. Raymond, facing a crisis of faith, travels to New York hoping for the support of his best friend, Jared, who's moved North after five years in Atlanta. His wife, Nicole, is performing in a revival of Dreamgirls, her lifelong fantasy at last coming true. Nicole is thrilled to return to the stage, but when things start to go wrong, her young and beautiful understudy, Yancey Harrington Braxton, steps into the spotlight a little too smoothly. And Nicole, far from achieving her dream, is suddenly forced to reevaluate her life and her marriage.

Blues: For All the Changes: New Poems
Author:  Nikki Giovanni
Publisher:  Morrow,William & Co
Date Published:  April 1999

Intimate, edgy, and unapologetic, Blues: For All the Changes bears the mark of Nikki Giovanni's unmistakable voice. In a career that has spanned three decades, Giovanni has created an indispensable body of work and earned a place among the nation's most celebrated and controversial poets. From the environment to our reliance on manners, from sex and politics to love among Black folk, Blues is a master-work with poems for every soul and every mood: The poignant "Stealing Home" pays tribute to Jackie Robinson, while "Road Rage Blues" jams on time and space: Giovanni celebrates love's absolute power in "Train Rides" and laments life's transience in "Me and Mrs. Robin." With the tenderness that has made her one of our most accessible and beloved poets, Giovanni evokes a world that is not only just but also happy.

2000 Award Winner
 Outstanding Literary Work, Fiction
"Blues: For All the Changes" 
by Nikki Giovanni 
(William Morrow)

Girlfriends
Author:  Anita Bunkley, Sandra Kitt, Eva Rutland
Publisher:  HarperCollins Publishers, Incorporated
Date Published:  May 1999

Three African-American authors, three novellas, one touching anthology that celebrates a union that transcends race, age, and time: friendship. Girlfriends presents the stories of three unique friendships, their difficulties, and the strength, solidarity, and love found only in the comfort of close female companionships. In Eva Rutland's Choices, girlfriends Millie and Becky help each other come to terms with their desire for both love and financial security in marriage. In Sandra Kitt's Heart of the Matter, childhood friends Danika and Katherine reunite after 10 years of estrangement, caused when Katherine married the man both women had loved. Now Katherine is determined to restore their special friendship and erase the pain that created a rift between them a decade ago. In Anita Bunkley's At the End of the Day, Micere, a divorced mother with one young child, turns to girlfriends Jewell and Yvonne for help and support in fighting her controlling ex-husband. Girlfriends is a celebration of friendship that will be shared and rejoiced in by women everywhere.

Those Bones Are Not My Child
Author:  Toni Cade Bambara
Publisher:  Random House, Incorporated
Date Published:  September 1999

"Those Bones Are Not My Child is the novel that Toni Cade Bambara worked on for twelve years until her death in 1995 - a story that puts us at the center of the nightmare of the Atlanta child murders."

"It was called "The City Too Busy To Hate," but two decades ago more than forty black children were murdered there with grim determination, their bodies found - in ditches, on riverbanks- strangled, beaten, and sexually assaulted."--BOOK JACKET. "On Sunday morning, July 20, 1980, Marzala Rawls Spencer awakens to find that her teenage son has gone missing, even as the Atlanta child abductions are beginning to be reported. As she and her estranged husband frantically search for their son, the story moves with authority through the full spectrum of Atlanta's political, social, and cultural life, illuminating the vexing issues of race and class that bedevil the city."--BOOK JACKET.